Soylent Bar Review: Avoid at All Costs

Soylent is at it again, and this time, they revolutionized the run of the mill protein bar. Soylent 2.0 was at the forefront of the food revolution, no longer did you need to masticate (chew) to be able to get all your nutrients and be healthy. Soylent 2.0 powder was the future; you could drink a quickly mixed shake and go on with your day. Measure water, add powder, shake, consume, it was that simple. Screw shopping for organic food, preparing meals with your family, or mastication, you are a man of the future you do not have time for silly things to maintain proper health. To quote my Fix Your Gut partner Jason Hooper “Soylent 2.0, for those who are too lazy to chew.”

Soylent 2.0 powder sounds great, right? Too bad its ingredients are shit. Hell, Hooper and I dislike Soylent 2.0 so much, we spent at least twenty minutes on the Optimal Performance Podcast, dissecting why it is so bad for you. Soylent continues to put out bad products and now they have put out a convenient protein bar. To get your proper nutrition all you have to do is open a wrapper, chew, and swallow. At least with the bar, you have to masticate, so it would have been a step up from Soylent 2.0 powder, too bad the ingredients are still garbage. Actually, Soylent Bar is worse because it is making people ill.

You think Soylent would have learned its lesson with sourcing poor quality sources to produce its products. Just as Hooper mentioned in the previous blog, Vice went to visit the Soylent warehouse in 2013; they found that it was subject to rats and mold. Did Soylent learn its lesson? Probably not, the bar has been voluntarily recalled because it was causing people to have gastrointestinal distress. Soylent claims:

“Soylent said its investigation has yet to turn up a problem with the 250-calorie bar and that its flagship beverage products “appear” to be unaffected. The powder, mixed with water to become a chalky meal replacement drink, is known to give new users some stomach issues for a few days. Soylent told the publication that the bars are manufactured at an FDA-inspected facility and go through microbiological testing before shipping.” ¹

Interesting, I guess Soylent upgraded their production facilities, or the FDA has a horrible track record of inspections. ² Let us take Soylent at their word, maybe the bars are produced hygienically, so why are people getting so ill? If I had to make an educated guess, it is from the horrid ingredients themselves they use to make the “nutrition bar of the future.”

So What Is In The Soylent Bar and Why Is It Crappy?

Soy Protein Isolate, Corn Syrup, Rolled Oat, Canola Oil, Glycerine, Whole Algal Flour, Isomaltooligosaccharide, Isomaltulose, Maltodextrin, Water, Dicalcium Phosphate Anhydrous, Soy Lecithin, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Salt, Tapioca Starch, Sunflower Oil, Dipotassium Phosphate, Modified Food Starch, Potassium Chloride, Choline Bitartrate, Mixed Tocopherol, Sucralose, Mono & Diglycerides, Magnesium Oxide, Ascorbic Acid, dl-alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Tricalcium Phosphate Anhydrous, Ferrous Sulfate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Niacinamide, Zinc Oxide, Copper Gluconate, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Potassium Iodide, Riboflavin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin D2, Chromium Chloride, Folic Acid, Biotin, Sodium Selenite, Sodium Molybdate, Phytonadione, Vitamin B12.

A Breakdown of These Ingredients

Wow, what a lot of crap in one bar. The first ingredient is GMO soy protein isolate, what a great form of protein. It sure would have been nice if they used grass fed whey protein, or hell, even brown rice protein or pea protein. Whey protein, for example, has been studied for its positive immune modulating effects and glutathione upregulation. ^{3 4 5}

What is the next ingredient in the bar? It has to be a sweetener. Honey? No, I got it, tapioca dextrin? Date sugar? Agave nectar? RAW CANE SUGAR????? No, we do not even get GMO sugar. Instead, we get delicious, refined GMO corn syrup. I guess we are lucky that we did not get GMO high fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup is not the only sweetener in the bar, oh no, we get quite a few more. Isomaltooligosaccharide, isomaltulose, and maltodextrin to name a few. Isomaltooligosaccharide, however, is not the worst prebiotic, that being said I do not fully recommend it. Hell, we even get the artificial sweetener sucralose added to the bar for those people when four sweeteners are not enough and like to live life on the edge.

I would assume this is one reason why people are having digestive issues from consuming the Soylent bar. They are getting a lot of FODMAPS in one bar combined with the negatively altering microbiome effect of consuming the chlorinated sugar substitute sucralose. You are feeding opportunistic bacteria and yeast when you ingest Soylent bar while reducing your probiotic bacteria reserves as well, a one, two punch to the gut. Just like consuming Soylent 2.0 I would not be surprised if the Soylent bar is also causing some people to develop bacterial / yeast overgrowth or contributing to IBS, upper gut overgrowth (corn syrup and maltodextrin), or SIBO. ^{6 7 8}

Next, we get a lot of binders that hold the bar together, some ok, some crappy. Rolled oats are not the worst. However, they are not certified gluten-free, and oats do contain the opioid peptide avenin which some people with Celiac disease may react to negatively. Next, we have algal flour, which is probably made from chlorella or other algae. Algal flour is better than most, but depending on where it was sourced it could be contaminated with heavy metals or radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Tapioca starch is not that bad either; I will give the Soylent bar credit when it is due. Finally, they add modified food starch, without listing the source. It could either made from wheat or GMO corn. ^{9 10}

Soylent then adds two forms of fat to the bar for satiety. Coconut oil? No, I got it palm oil. No, well I give up, what type of oil did they use? Sigh, I should not have to guess, they used GMO canola oil. You have to get in your heart-healthy polyunsaturated fats, canola oil, and sunflower oil. For the sunflower oil, they could have used at least high-oleic sunflower oil to improve the fatty acid profile. Sunflower oil is also an excellent source of vitamin E, it is not the worst oil that is for sure. At least they did not combine GMO soybean oil with the canola. Nonetheless, you still get a lot of crappy disease promoting polyunsaturated fats in the Soylent Bar that American’s already have too much of in their SAD. ^{11 12}

If your gut is still functioning enough to absorb any nutrients after digesting all the sludge you just consumed in bar form, you get a serving of the worst vitamins and minerals. Just like the popular multivitamin Centrum you would probably be in better shape if you did not ingest the vitamins and minerals in Centrum or Soylent bar, they are that bad; it is a pure net loss. I am going to list the following vitamins and nutrients from the bar that I believe are inferior forms, you can click on this blog to read more on why I know they are poor and what they should have used instead.

• Magnesium oxide
• Dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate
• Ferrous sulfate
• Zinc oxide
• Vitamin D2
• Folic acid
• Sodium molybdate
• Phytonadione
• Vitamin B12 (I am putting B12 on this list, they do not disclose what form, cyanocobalamin is the cheapest form, so I assume that is what they use)

What Bars Do I Recommend Instead?

So what bars would I recommend instead of Soylent? No bar is perfect, and some people with digestive issues might not be able to find a bar they can safely eat. Most of the following bars should be eaten in moderation, even if you have optimal digestion. That being said I recommend:

• Bricks Bars
• Bulletproof Collagen Bars
• Epic Bars
• Lara Bars (apple pie, banana bread, blueberry muffin, carrot cake, cherry pie, chocolate coconut chew, coconut cream pie, key lime pie, lemon bar, pecan pie, pumpkin pie)
• RAW Protein Bars
• Simple Squares
• Tanka Bars

Is Soylent Bar food for the future? Hell no, it is not even food for the past. It does not surprise me that the bar was causing people to have digestive issues, its ingredients are as far from natural food as one can get. I hope that Soylent will change their model and try to do what is best for the health of the consumer over their profit. However, I will not hold my breath that this will occur. Soylent, however, does not have time for your health, this is all about convenience. Being “THE” bar, we eat while we are colonizing the stars. Too bad consuming Soylent in a hyperspace voyage is like the humans in the movie Wall-E. Eating all those Soylent bars will make you fat, dumb, and full of acne, just like them. Eat some real fresh natural food for your health.